Comments
Ottobahn- t1_j5qctpu wrote
> Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, said in a statement that the suit “doubles down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow.”
Can’t everyone just leave Google alone? They’re obviously in the business of looking out for the little guy and the industry as a whole, so just stop your shit already!
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Actual__Wizard t1_j5qi2ln wrote
Finally. Please bust this company up.
Their dominance over the digital advertising and online search spaces is beyond ridiculous...
Actual__Wizard t1_j5qibqn wrote
When you feel that you are forced to change your slogan from "Don't Be Evil" to something else, you know there's a big problem...
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kamikazecow t1_j5qqan8 wrote
Given both sides take on big tech I could see a strong push to breakup Google. My bet is on it actually happening but then the Supreme Court steps in and kills all anti trust laws blocking the breakup.
FaryGagan t1_j5qqfe8 wrote
Not to mention the quality of their search engine has tanked recently because... why care about the user when you make so much money off of advertising to the world?
Flatline2962 t1_j5qtixm wrote
Cory Doctorow just the other day posted an article he wrote recently on why social media companies (and you can include Alphabet in this) progressively get worse. He frames it really well. You're "profiting" from using those services and there's a surplus of satisfaction if the product is good. By making it harder to quit the service or through more aggressive advertising, the provider creates an environment where they can reclaim that satisfaction, objectifying and monetizing you more and more, making you more and more miserable using the product. As long as they don't push you over the threshold of "fuck this I'm leaving" then any of your "surplus" satisfaction the leave on the table is money they're leaving out of their pocket.
The product needs to be good while it's growing and establishing a market and a userbase. That pivots, immediately, to making things *just* shitty and monetized enough that while you aren't enjoying the product any more, but quitting the product would be a worse prospective.
https://craphound.com/news/2023/01/22/social-quitting/
It's a great read. It goes both ways, both the users who are miserable with the service or product and the advertisers who are miserable with the terms because Alphabet is the only game in town.
Edit: the link goes to an mp3 from his podcast. I thought I had seen it in an email from his newsletter but I guess not. Still worth a listen.
FaryGagan t1_j5qu810 wrote
When I look at what the company has done to YouTube in the name of advertising, it's very difficult for me to say they are "looking out for the little guy." Today's Alphabet (along with the rest of corporate‐managed internet) pushes for content consumption, not generation.
The little guy used to be able to use Google and Youtube to break down the walls that bloated industries put before us (I'm talking right-to-repair, product reviews, etc). We still have this, but as advertising gets pushed more and more it gets harder and harder to reach it.
I'm grateful for what we have and the amazing tools that our industries have developed, but if we dont start breaking up these guys now innovation is probably going to falter. Why innovate for the people when there's so much more money in advertising to them?
gmo_patrol t1_j5qxaka wrote
I remember when they talked about breaking up Google and Android, but then they changed their mind when Google said they'd actually start charging ppl for their services instead of making everything free.
Cyrix2k OP t1_j5qzite wrote
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Aazadan t1_j5r2n9s wrote
There’s a real problem right now with large tech companies, but they have so much control right now, that technological development, especially digital security has warped around necessitating their continued existence.
Take every service google has ingested, imagine those were all separate companies, still linking with each other. It’s orders of magnitude more points of failure for things like data leaks.
A breakup should happen, but it’s going to be really tricky to implement.
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1QAte4 t1_j5r8x47 wrote
This is a legitimate issue regarding "breaking up" a lot of tech companies. You can use a ton of Google services for free in exchange for seeing some ads. Nobody wants to be responsible for forcing Google to have to charge a subscription for Google Maps for example.
Cyrix2k OP t1_j5r9okd wrote
MapQuest was free before Google came along
1QAte4 t1_j5r9yt8 wrote
Yeah and you used to have to print out the directions on your home PC. You still needed to go to their website which had ads too.
Cyrix2k OP t1_j5ranc7 wrote
Many years ago that was true. My point is that without Google's influence and anti-competitive policies, it's likely MapQuest would have continued to be the dominant player for online mapping which was originally free and would likely continue to be free. The fact it's ad supported is immaterial - back then, it would have been supported by non-Google ads. It's a great example of why Google should be broken up.
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[deleted] t1_j5rbm7m wrote
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oldvlognewtricks t1_j5rbp4e wrote
Good what, exactly?
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1QAte4 t1_j5rd7rd wrote
My point was: would the MapQuest in your timeline where Google doesn't exist be a better product than Google Maps today? I am not convinced that MapQuest would have made an even as good product as Google Maps without having the Google Ad system to help develop it.
I agree that Google seems to have a monopoly on internet ads. You are totally correct about that. But my point is that we need to be careful when we start "breaking up" tech companies since the unintended consequences can be dramatic for every day systems that we take for granted. The average consumer doesn't care about there being a competitive digital advertising market. The average consumer wants free services and will resent those services being taken away because the DoJ broke up Google. The government genuinely cannot afford to disrupt services hundreds of millions of Americans have come to rely on.
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DistortoiseLP t1_j5ro6il wrote
Google does charge for Google Maps, just not for the typical user that makes up the value they're charging for. If you want to use the API for anything down to embedding a map on your site up to a full featured application like GeoGuessr, you're paying on a per-request basis once you use up the complimentary quota.
Ads certainly aren't the only way services like Maps are monetized, although luring customers to businesses is still the typical use case to pay for it. The people using it for free are the product that Google then charges businesses to leverage. Once upon a time, much of this API was free, and it's there that Google installed the premiums in this case.
[deleted] t1_j5rorcy wrote
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jbaze524 t1_j5rsrlc wrote
So sad but what can we do ?
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5150_Ewok t1_j5rwtk8 wrote
Maybe breaking up google for data leaks is the end goal 👀
chaossabre t1_j5ry9kg wrote
Install an ad-blocking plugin and get on with life.
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hhh888hhhh t1_j5s1jo0 wrote
They should sue them for forcing advertising links when you Google the item itself.
Zeggitt t1_j5sc5b8 wrote
Mapquest was also unreliable
usrevenge t1_j5sg997 wrote
Idk the difference is Facebook objectively pushed Republican talking points so Republicans wouldn't do anything about it anyway.
TossZergImba t1_j5shvh3 wrote
YouTube has basically never generated a profit in its entire existence, it's been subsidized by the rest of Google for decades now. If you think splitting off YouTube is gonna reduce the amount of monetization, you're gonna be in for a big surprise.
lmaccaro t1_j5skw9f wrote
Stat I saw - 30c of every dollar spent on the internet is captured by Google.
another-redditor3 t1_j5slqp2 wrote
and they were god awful too.
didsomebodysaymyname t1_j5sphjt wrote
>they changed their mind when Google said they'd actually start charging ppl for their services instead of making everything free.
Which is an obvious lie...Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat all exist and serve basically the same purpose with slight variations.
Duckduckgo exists.
Obviously, "free" services make money with ads, but it's not like having two means they both have to charge suddenly.
didsomebodysaymyname t1_j5sq4i6 wrote
>Nobody wants to be responsible for forcing Google to have to charge a subscription for Google Maps for example.
That wouldn't happen.
Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram all do basically the same thing, and all coexist. Lots of people use one or some of them, but not the others. They all survive by selling ads or data.
Waze exists. If Google got broken up and maps started charging, they would have no customers and everyone would switch to something else.
Competition usually lowers prices.
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ablatner t1_j5sylqu wrote
Google has owned Waze for years.
ablatner t1_j5syu3a wrote
Honestly I think telecom and media monopolies/consolidation is way worse for consumers. Everyone talks about tech because it's visible in day to day life, but there are so many industries that are problematic.
minomes t1_j5t6r4h wrote
You can easily embed maps on a site without paying
rasifiel t1_j5t8xbs wrote
And they merged Waze and GMaps team.
MeatsimPD t1_j5teqoy wrote
They don't even need to break up all of Google, it's just the ad business. Though that does account for 80% of Google's profit.
Really we should call Google an advertising company not a tech company
FaryGagan t1_j5u1tkf wrote
You're right, I thought google hadn't bought them until much later.
Anyway, I have zero expectation of a site like Youtube "reversing" its monetization. I'm supporting this move because that noose will only get tighter and tighter if we don't start establishing a healthier ecosystem for a domain so fresh to our society
Ben_Jahmin t1_j5uazdj wrote
What are you even saying? Youtube generates $28B a year, almost as much as Netflix' $31B a year.
Youtube is one of the biggest search engines in the world and the biggest video platform on the Internet.
Why are you saying it's "subsidized" ? This is a lie.
Cyrix2k OP t1_j5uh5lp wrote
It's another reason Google should be broken up though. Google bought Waze for 1 billion dollars in 2013, a move due to Google's extreme wealth, power and influence. That acquisition removed competition from the market, competition that offered what many believed to be a superior product. Even the old Waze CEO commented "Looking back, we could have probably grown faster and much more efficiently had we stayed independent." https://www.timesofisrael.com/waze-ceo-noam-bardin-explains-why-he-left-google-2weeks-ago/
aspen0414 t1_j5ujnbx wrote
Everyone commenting on here is talking about Google as a consumer-facing business. This suit is about their advertising technology being broken up. Google licenses tech that both buys AND sells ad space. The DOJ wants these split up. This has nothing to do with Google Maps or Google Search or anything most of you use. The only people with skin in this game are advertisers and media companies.
mattaw2001 t1_j5ujubu wrote
Not in any quantity anymore. But for a small organization's website it is currently free.
didsomebodysaymyname t1_j5uykbk wrote
My bad, but the point still stands, when Waze was independent it was popular, and Google was bugged enough by it to buy it.
They didn't start charging for Maps in response to competition, they paid to get rid of the competition.
didsomebodysaymyname t1_j5uysot wrote
Yeah, the fact they didn't start charging in response to competition and in fact paid to get rid of it shows their argument about having to charge if they're broken up is BS.
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TossZergImba t1_j5x3jau wrote
Do you not know the difference between revenue and profit? Yes YouTube brings in revenue, but it shares a big chunk of it with creators and the left over isn't enough to cover costs. This isn't a surprise to anyone .
Ben_Jahmin t1_j60mwnf wrote
And what's the net profit of YouTube?
TossZergImba t1_j61tyjt wrote
We know it's negative, because Alphabet has refused to ever publish it, despite doing so for its other divisions. Not to mention their overall revenue is also declining on top of that.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/google-still-isnt-telling-us-about-youtube-and-cloud-profits.html
lvlint67 t1_j626gur wrote
> Waze exist... Competition...
Oh honey...
macross1984 t1_j5qb4s7 wrote
And any fines given will be paid from daily expense account of doing business as usual.